Something Like a Criminal: Part 1

Cops never want to "just talk" to you.

“Something Like a Criminal” follows a young female hacker over a summer night in Rochester, NY as she figures out why the cops are chasing her and how she can escape. She also makes a decision about her friends that will change their lives forever.

The events in this story occur before those in The Good Killers.

One thing I figured out early on was that cops never want to “just talk” to you. This was the first thought that came to mind when I heard a car roll into the driveway of Parker’s house. Neither one of us was expecting anyone. Neither one of us was in trouble, so far as I knew.

I froze on the couch. Listening.

A car door opened and closed with a barely audible squeak and thump.

Parker and her daughter were sleeping in their rooms. While I worked on my laptop, I had an old movie running with the sound low on Parker’s TV. Anyone approaching the front door could see it through the gauzy window shades across the living room’s picture window, could see the splashes of blue light flickering across the ceiling. They would know someone was home. On top of that, the house we were renting had central air, but it had stopped working a week ago, so we had the windows open and fans running.

I eased the lid of my laptop closed and turned to the front door.

The doorbell chimed.

Parker stumbled out of the hallway that led to the bedrooms. A black Yeah Yeah Yeahs T-shirt hung off her shoulders, topping plaid dorm pants. A ripped pocket flapped on her thigh with each step. Strands of hair were plastered to the left side of her face by sweat and the hair on the other side made a frizzy halo. She reached up to scratch the top of her head, revealing a large hole in the armpit seam.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” she said through a yawn. Too loud.

“It’s your house,” I whispered back.

Parker peeked through the window to one side of the door.

“Cops,” she said to me, now awake and pointlessly whispering.

The cop must have heard her because a man’s muffled voice came through the door. “We’re looking for Francesca Hussell. We heard she’s been staying here.” After a beat, he added: “We just want to talk to her.”

I never really liked Francesca as a name. It was my mother’s idea. My dad called me Frankie.

Parker looked at me.

I shook my head emphatically.

The cop rapped on the door.

I pulled on my hoodie, tucked my laptop under my arm, and dashed from the couch to the hallway, heading for the bedrooms.

Parker talked through the door with the cop outside. She wanted to see the cop’s ID.

I slipped into Parker’s bedroom.

Through her bedroom window, I saw the cop outside under the harsh porch light. He was in his mid-twenties, maybe had a year or two on me. I didn’t recognize him. Not that I knew a lot of cops, but I’d run into a few. This one didn’t have a uniform. He wore a black polo shirt and black pants. He did, however, have a standard cop-issue face with a sleepy expression, like he’d just woken up from a nap. I looked more closely and barely made out the outline of a badge embroidered onto the left side of his shirt and the Rochester Police Department’s silver eagle patch on his shoulder.

I spotted the dark shapes of two cop cars in the gloom of the driveway. Both cars didn’t have obvious lights and the only markings were the subtle “ghost” markings that only showed up when your headlights hit them.

Two cars meant two cops.

So where was the other one?

Title slide for Something Like a Criminal

I leaned way over and tried to get a better view of the driveway. I spotted the other cop, a female, standing beside one of the cars. Like her partner, she wore a black polo tucked into black pants. Unlike her partner, she held her gun at her side, a bit extreme for just talking with two twenty-something women and a child.

Which meant that nobody was watching the back.

Parker’s voice and the cop’s voice did a back-and-forth. I imagined Parker bouncing anxiously on her toes. One of her nervous habits.

I couldn’t think of a reason for them to be looking for me. I’d been staying out of trouble. Well, except for the past month. My van broke down and I needed to get it fixed. Finances had been a little tight so I had to get back in touch with my dad’s old business partners. But I wasn’t doing anything obviously illegal.

I jogged to my bedroom to get my go bag. I did the best I could with the light that spilled over from the hallway. I kept the go bag by my bed: a small black backpack with cash, change of clothes, and other gear I might need in case I had to bail. I had my work phone on a charger by my bed. It was a basic model that had the useful quality of being not traceable to any of my personal accounts. I grabbed that, too. As I slung the bag over my shoulder, I decided to leave my laptop behind. If I was caught with it on me, the cops would search it for evidence. I fished a pair of sneakers from inside my unlit closet and jammed my feet into them. And was thankful for small miracles, since I managed to get a lefty and a righty.

Where to stash the laptop?

The other bedroom door opened. Parker’s daughter came out. Kid was always a light sleeper. She looked like a six-year-old version of her mom in Hello Kitty pajamas. Same sweat-and-sleep hairstyle. She noticed me moving around in my bedroom and padded across the worn carpeting toward me.

“What’s going on, DeeDee?” the kid said. She always called me DeeDee.

“The police are outside,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“Are they looking for you?” she said, hugging herself.

“Why do you think…? OK, yeah, they’re looking for me. But only this one time.”

Out in the living room, Parker opened the front door. I heard it clunk against the chain.

“Here’s what I need you to do for your auntie, OK?” I gave her my laptop. “Go into the bathroom and lock the door. Hide this under the tub.” The bathroom had an old clawfoot tub. “Push it way under. All the way against the wall. Got it? Don’t come out until your mom tells you to. If anyone else asks for you, tell them you’re going potty.”

She nodded.

“Remember what I told you about cops?”

“Don’t talk to them.”

“Right. Except your name. You can tell them that. What else?”

“Don’t run. If they ask questions, start crying.”

“And…?”

“And don’t hit them. No matter how much I want to.”

I gave her a kiss on her forehead. In response, she hugged me. “Oh, so strong!” I said, squeezed her in return, and she basically disappeared into my arms and I hoped this wasn’t the last time I would hold that little kid. She reminded me of myself. As I remember it, I was close to her age when my parents started having trouble. In my case, however, it was my mom who was the screwup and my dad who tried to hold everything together.

She padded into the bathroom, which was across from my bedroom, flipped on the light, and closed the door. The lock clicked. Then, from the living room, I heard the hinges creak as Parker opened the front door all the way.

Time to go.

My bedroom was at the back of the house. When I’d moved in with Parker a few months earlier, she’d let me use the room. Hers was the larger bedroom toward the front, which overlooked the entrance, and she liked that. Me, I preferred to be in the back for precisely this occasion. I slipped open the window and then the screen. The night air greeted me: hot, muggy, and garbage-scented, as pleasant as dog breath.

I stepped onto the cracked concrete of the patio and followed a trail of shadows through backyards to the next block.

Stay tuned for the next chapter!

If you enjoy Frankie in this short story, check out the first novel in the Rossi/Lopez series, The Good Killers (ad), where she plays a pivotal role.

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