Jim was disappointed to find out that Pam had a prior commitment Saturday, apparently it was tradition to have supper with her mother and sister every other Saturday and so she couldn’t go out with him. The upshot to all that was it was Pam who suggested they meet in the park for a picnic lunch on Sunday, surprising Jim with her assertiveness, and at the same time assuring him that she had an equal stake in whatever it was they were becoming. Jim was hard pressed to remember many details of the picnic in the park overlooking the reservoir just south of town, but what he did remember was that Pam was smiling widely the entire time, and it was contagious. They had a great time just talking and taking in the scenery. It was Monday morning and Jim still felt like his face was sore from smiling so much.

Jim went through his morning routine at the station, he changed into uniform, checked everything was in its place in his utility belt, checked the charge on his stun gun, put the belt on, and loaded and holstered his service pistol. Jim grabbed a radio off the chargers and double checked it was on the right channel and fully charged before putting it in the pouch on his belt and running the mic up to his shoulder and clipping it there. The forecast said there was a risk of rain, so Jim grabbed his DMPS branded high visibility rain jacket before heading out to the office where Michael held the morning briefings. Jim gave Pam a wave and a smile as he laid the jacket down on his desk and waited for Michael to come out of his office to send them off.

“All right, good morning constabros,” Michael started bombastically, emerging from his office brandishing his clipboard, “There’s not a whole lot going on out there, other than that the Hutterites at the Woodlands colony are complaining about some trespassers hunting on their property, but night shift  didn’t turn anything up when they swung by,” Michael paused, flipping a page.

“In other news, Mayor Wallace wants us really dogging those school zones, anyone going over thirty klicks is getting a ticket, and fines are doubled. All right, that’s all folks, anything to add?”

Nobody said anything and everyone started getting up to head out on patrol.

“Sounds good, hit the road suckers,” Michael shot at their backs as they headed out to the lot.

Jim figured that Dwight would be all over the school zones even though they weren’t his usual patrol area. Jim usually patrolled the southeastern part of town, which was mainly residential, but it also had some of the larger retailers and the agricultural shops. Jim liked it because he could stop Dwight from talking about all the incredible new farm implements by denying him the patrol area. With Wallace’s crackdown on school zones though, Jim didn’t want to be anywhere near there this week, and so he found himself north of the tracks, patrolling the residential area where lower income folks generally lived, Pam and himself included. As he’d discovered over the weekend, he lived practically just across the creek from Pam, he was five blocks west of her and two blocks south.

Jim stopped at the Coop gas bar to grab some more coffee and was chatting with the attendant when his radio chirped.

“Adam twelve, Dispatch,” Pam’s voice crackled from his shoulder.

Jim grabbed the mic off his shoulder, giving the attendant a wave as he chucked his now empty coffee and started making his way back to the car, “Go for Adam twelve.”

“Are you responding to the call on screen?”

‘Oops,’ Jim thought to himself, he forgot to change his status when he pulled into the gas station, and so Pam had dropped a call on his computer.

“Sorry Dispatch,” Jim said as he clambered into the car, “Just got back to the car now, I’m rolling,” he glanced over at his screen to see a call waiting for him.

“Update your status Adam twelve, Dispatch out,” Jim heard a hint of annoyance.

It was only fair, he understood that there wasn’t really much point to the computer aided dispatching if he wasn’t updating the system to say that he was out of service temporarily, causing Pam to have to follow up with the call as he stood around shooting the breeze with the pump attendant.

The details of the call stated it was for a report of property damage at the Woodlands Colony, nothing further, and so Jim rolled out towards the highway after changing his status to responding. The colony itself was about twenty minutes north by the highway, and another ten on gravel roads, so Jim lost himself to autopilot and just listened to the radio calls as background chatter. Dwight was calling in a license plate check, likely having pulled over some poor soul going thirty-five in the schoolzone. Stanley was requesting permission to go for lunch at the local diner, and meanwhile Kelly was responding to juveniles loitering someplace – sounded residential. By the time Jim was pulling up the Colony’s gravel winding driveway, Kelly had cleared off her call, and Dwight seemed to be on another traffic stop. It sounded as though Jim had been wise to avoid that end of town today.

Jim drove past the big block houses and communal areas towards the back of the colony, where he could see a couple of white trucks and a van parked with quite the assortment of men dressed in various patterned shirts tucked into dark slacks. Jim pulled his car off to the side and got out near a large barn, meant to hold pigs if he smelled correctly. Jim spotted Minister Hofer in the crowd as set himself to on-scene and exited the car, making his way over.

“Hello Constable,” Hofer greeted him with his usual slow pace and strong low-german accent, “Thanks for coming out.”

“No problem Mr. Hofer,” Jim shook his hand after they had closed the distance, “Mind telling me what’s the trouble?”

“Why sure, if you’d follow me jus’ over here,” Hofer gestured to the pig pen and they started walking.

When the got closer, Jim could see that some of the men had cleared an area in the pen.

“You see, the trouble is somebody has shot one of our pigs,” Hofer exclaimed, pointing to the dead beast lying in the mud with a bloody hole in it, “Maybe not on purpose mind you, but its dead as a doornail.”

“D’ya mind telling me when you noticed this,” Jim asked, noticing that he’d subconsciously slowed his speech down to match the cadence of the minister, chuckling internally at how that worked.

“First light was when we noticed it, must have been those hunters that were shootin’ around last night if you ask me,” he answered with a huff, “Probably shot at a dear in the clearing and missed, overshootin’ into the poor pig here.”

Jim cast his eyes about to survey the scene. The Colony was built in a windbreak, the trees started about three hundred metres out, so it wasn’t an entirely impossible scenario, but anyone shooting from the forest would be able to see the lights on the barn and other buildings, meaning they knew they were shooting towards inhabited buildings. At the same time, the stark white barn and its lights could probably do well silhouetting a target out in the clearing.

Jim continued to interview Minister Hofer, asking all the standard questions such as how much was the pig worth, was there anyone who would want to hurt the pig, anyone angry with the colony or slighted in a deal, etcetera. Eventually Jim had completed the crime report form and went back to his car to call for Toby, as the value of the pig and the possibility of illegal discharge of a weapon meant that the incident had to be investigated.

“Dispatch, Adam twelve,” Jim said into the mic that he had grabbed from its cradle in the car.

“Adam twelve, go ahead.”

“Can you get H-ten to meet me on tac two?”

Pam depressed her talk button and replied to Jim’s radio message, “Adam twelve roger, standby.”

Pam knocked on the glass window to her right, startling Toby, and slid the little thing open. That window always made Pam feel like she was working in a drive through or something.

“Yeah,” Toby asked as he spun around from his desk facing the wall, leaning on his knees towards her as he came to a stop.

“Jim wants you on channel two,” Pam said as she gestured to her headset with her free hand, and before he had finished giving her a response she was pulling the window closed and turning back to her computer to deal with the incessant dinging that was a fresh call waiting to be dispatched that had come in to Phyllis. As Pam dropped the call onto Kelly’s screen, she noticed Toby getting up and putting his jacket on, heading towards the door. Jim must have discovered something that required detecting.

Pam glanced out into the office and had to stop herself from flinching, a cameraman was standing not six feet in front of her on the other side of the window and practically all she could see was a big dark lens staring her down. It was unnerving how they moved around the office so stealthily. Thankfully due to the ‘sensitive operations environment’ that she worked in the cameras weren’t allowed in the operations room. This didn’t stop them from holding cameras up to her window and staring her down like they were right now though, and Pam was hard pressed not to roll her eyes at the camera guy, because really, what was so interesting about her and  her job? Pam thought it was suspect how they kept showing up whenever Jim had lunch in the station with her, almost like they were looking for ‘character drama’ or something. Pam was really good at pretending to be busy, so that’s what she did between checking up on all the patrol cars out there and assigning the trickle of calls that came in.

Pam was jolted from her routine by the phone ringing, glancing down at the caller ID showed that Phyllis was conferencing her in to a 911 call. Pam hit the headset button and found the home keys on her keyboard, preparing to dispatch.

“Caller from the RM of Dunder Mifflin, report of a reckless driver,” Phyllis intoned by way of handoff.

“Have there been any accidents,” Pam asked the caller, trying to ascertain the situation.

“Not right now, no, but the guy was weaving through traffic on the highway going stupid fast,” a younger sounding male informed her.

“Where are you now?”

“I’m sitting at the Coop gas bar; I noticed the truck had pulled in when I was driving past.”

“What make or model is the truck?”

While Pam was asking these questions, she glanced over at her screen with the GPS locations of all the units on patrol, noticing that Jim had cleared off his earlier call and was making his way back into town.

“It’s a black ford, with an extended cab, newish?”

“Can you read the license plate? Are there any other identifying features that would make it stand out?”

“I can’t read it too well from where I’m sitting, but it starts with foxtrot-oscar-xray, the truck has a big lift and tires on it as well.”

“Adam twelve, requesting lunch at the station,” Jim called from the radio, coming in her left ear while the phone call went on in her right.

“Ok, thank you sir, please hang on the line while I get an officer heading that way, in the meantime the operator is going to ask you a few more questions,” Pam thanked the man for the details and muted the phone as she switched over to the police radio channel. She could hear Phyllis asking for contact information in her right ear as the radio squawked in her left.

“Adam twelve, proceed with patrol and handle this call, respond to the north end Coop gas bar for a reckless driver there now, vehicle described as a black late model ford pickup, with lift kit and tires, partial plate foxtrot-oscar-xray, handle code two,” Pam intoned.

“Adam twelve roger, reckless driver at north end Coop gas, black lifted ford pickup, partial plate foxtrot-oscar-xray, show me enroute,” Jim’s voice came back, the growl of the Crown Victoria’s V8 engine could be heard in the background.

“Showing you enroute at fourteen-eleven,” Pam ended the conversation, she unmuted the phone call and spoke again.

“Alright sir, an officer will be there shortly, are you able to stay on the line with me until they arrive,” Pam glanced over to the map as Jim’s dot jumped closer and closer to the gas station, he was about two minutes away she reckoned, he had just exited onto the service road.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Perfect, where is the driver now?”

“I think he just went in to pay.”

“Could you describe him; Height, build, age, clothes that sort of thing?”

“Uhh, if I had to guess he’d be late forties, bigger white dude with grey hair, wearing a brown jacket and khaki pants.”

Pam added all of the information she and Phyllis had gathered from the call and dropped it into the information area on Jim’s screen, including the caller’s vehicle description so Jim could talk to them when he got there.

“Right on, the officer should be pulling up any moment now, stay with me until he pulls up and let me know if the driver starts making his way towards his truck, ok?”

“Sounds good, will do.”

They sat on the line in awkward silence for a minute before the radio and caller broke it simultaneously.

“Adam twelve, show me on-scene,” Jim’s voice crackled from the radio at the same time as the caller spoke.

“I think the officer just pulled up, he parked in front of the truck.”

“Perfect, he’ll come over to talk to you in a minute if you could just stay put, I’ve got your information down so I’m going to end the call with you now, ok?”

“Ok, bye.”

“Thanks for calling, bye,” Pam hung up.

“Adam twelve on-scene, fourteen-fourteen,” Pam acknowledged Jim and flipped his status for him.

A few minutes passed, and just as Pam was about to check up on Jim when she saw his status flip to returning to station.

“Dispatch, Adam twelve.”

“Go for dispatch Adam twelve.”

“Dispatch could you roll me a tow-truck for this black ford, I’ve got one in custody for DUI, heading back to the station now.”

“Copy Adam twelve, rolling a tow-truck for impound,” Pam said as she glanced over at her side screen to confirm that he’d updated the license plate on the call.

‘Oh boy, that’s going to be a staticus dramaticus,’ Pam thought to herself as she read the updated notes on the callout. The detained individual was one Kenneth Anderson.

Roy’s brother.