Dangerous Women

“What I should’ve done a long time ago.”

Liz leaned against a chair for support. Her daughter noticed the woman’s left hand, which had eased to within inches of the telephone.

“No!” the girl barked. “Get away from it.”

Liz gave a hopeless glance at the receiver and then did as she was told.

“Come with me.”

“Now? In the rain.”

The girl nodded.

“Let me get a coat.”

“There’s one by the door.”

“It’s not warm enough.”

The girl hesitated, as if she was going to say that the warmth of her mother’s coat was irrelevant, considering what was about to happen. But then she nodded. “But don’t try to use the phone. I’ll be watching.”

Stepping into the doorway of the sewing room, Liz picked up the blue jacket she’d just been working on. She slowly put it on, her eyes riveted to the doily and the hump of the pistol beneath it. She glanced back into the living room. Her daughter was staring at a framed snapshot of herself at eleven or twelve standing next to her father and mother.

Quickly she reached down and picked up the gun. She could turn fast, point it at her daughter. Scream to her to throw away her own gun.

Mother, I can feel you near me, all through the night…

Father, I know you can hear me, all through the night…

But what if Beth A

What if she raised it, intending to shoot?

What would Liz do then?

To save her own life could she kill her daughter?

Sleep, my child…

Beth A

But then she sighed.

The answer was no. A deafening no. She’d never hurt her daughter. Whatever was going to happen next, outside in the rain, she could never hurt the girl.

Replacing the gun, Liz joined Beth A

“Let’s go,” her daughter said and, shoving her own pistol into the waistband of her jeans, she led the woman outside, gripping her mother roughly by the arm. This was, Liz realized, the first physical contact in at least four years.

They stopped on the porch and Liz spun around to face her daughter. “If you do this, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“No,” the girl said. “I’d regret not doing it.”

Liz felt a spatter of rain join the tears on her cheeks. She glanced at her daughter. The young woman’s face was wet and red too, but this was, her mother knew, solely from the rain; her eyes were completely tearless. In a whisper she asked, “What’ve I ever done to make you hate me?”

This question went unanswered as the first of the squad cars pulled into the yard, red and blue and white lights igniting the fat raindrops around them like sparks at a Fourth of July celebration. A man in his thirties, wearing a dark wind-breaker and a badge around his neck, climbed out of the first car and walked toward the house, two uniformed state troopers behind him. He nodded to Beth A

The young woman shook his hand. “Detective Beth A

“Welcome to Portland,” he said.

She gave an ironic shrug, took the handcuffs he held and cuffed her mother’s hands securely.

Numb from the cold rain-and from the emotional fusion of the meeting-Beth A

Beth A

“Honey,” her mother began, the voice miserable, pleading.

Beth A

The uniformed trooper blinked, looking over the slim, slight captive, who seemed as unthreatening as a child. But, with a nod from Heath, he motioned over a policewoman, who expertly patted her down. The officer frowned when she came to the small of Liz’s back. The mother gave a piercing glance to her daughter as the officer pulled up the woman’s navy-blue jacket, revealing a small pocket sewn into the inside back of the garment. Inside was a small switchblade knife and a universal handcuff key.

“Jesus,” whispered the officer. He nodded to the policewoman, who searched her again. No other surprises were found.

Beth A

“How could you do this to your mother?” Liz snapped viciously. “You Judas.”

Beth A

Heath and Beth A

Capturing Liz Polemus could indeed have turned into a bloodbath. It had happened before. Several years ago, when her mother and her lover, Brad Selbit, had tried to knock over a jewelry store in A

An informant had told the Oregon State Police that Liz Polemus was the one behind the string of recent robberies in the Northwest and was living under a fake name in a bungalow here. The OSP detectives on the case had learned that her daughter was a detective with the Seattle police department and had helicoptered Beth A

“She was on two states’ ten-most-wanted lists. And I heard she was making a name for herself in California too. Imagine that-your own mother.” Heath’s voice faded, thinking this might be indelicate.

But Beth A

“You grandfather?”

She nodded. “That warehouse… I can still see it so clear. Smell it. Feel the cold. And I was only there once. When I was about eight, I guess. It was full of perped merch. My father left me in the office alone for a few minutes and I peeked out the door and saw him and one of his buddies beating the hell out of this guy. Nearly killed him.”

“Doesn’t sound like they tried to keep anything very secret from you.”

“Secret? Hell, they did everything they could to get me into the business. My father had these special games, he called them. Oh, I was supposed to go over to friends’ houses and scope out if they had valuables and where they were. Or check out TVs and VCRs at school and let him know where they kept them and what kind of locks were on the doors.”