Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Officer Porter Arrives on the Scene

Horace rubbed his hands together, then rubbed them against his ears, which were starting to feel like they had been lit on fire, they were so cold. Then he put his hands in his pockets and curled the fingers into fists, to hold onto his body heat as long as possible. On second thought, he considered, maybe the sub-zero temperatures could be worse than being inside with the irritating, greasy cashier.

But he'd already gone back into the store once, and he was determined not to go back in again.

After stamping his feet against the ground, several times, Horace stomped on one foot with the other, too see if there was any feeling in the toes. Five minutes into that pathetic game, a police cruiser drove into the parking lot. Horace waited for the officer to park, and then walked up to his driver-side door.

"Good morning, officer," he said, as the man rolled down his window.

"Are you Horace Mullins?" the officer, whose tag read "Porter", asked.

"Yes."

Officer Porter rolled the window back up, then stepped out of the cruiser. "And your car was stolen. Make? Model? License?"

Horace rattled off all the information he could remember about his car; a 1992 Ford Taurus, dark red, and a license plate number that ended in '7KT'.

Porter jotted down all this information, then asked, "Did you leave the keys in the car?"

"No sir. I always keep my keys with me. I went inside, was in there for maybe five minutes, and then when I came back out, the car was gone." He pointed at the parking space two slots down from the cruiser. "That's where it was parked."

The officer looked behind him, where Horace was pointing, then at the convenience store entrance. There was no possible line of sight from inside the store to that section of the parking lot. "Couldn't possible see what happened from inside, could you?"

"No."

"Hmm. Well, the place looks pretty deserted. Just that minivan at the pump. Maybe the owner saw what happened."

Horace shook his head. "We can't find the owner of that van," he said. "He's nowhere to be found."

"Well that would be about the dumbest thing," the cop said to himself, loudly enough for Horace to hear.

"What?"

"For the guy to steal your car, and leave his own behind. All we've got to do is check the registration, and we'll know who your thief is."

Speaking of dumb things, Horace felt pretty stupid; it had never occurred to him that the owner of the abandoned mini van might, in fact, be the thief.

Good thing I'm not a cop, he thought.

Officer Porter walked to the passenger side of the mini van and opened the door. Horace stomped his feet a few more times while he waited impatiently for the policeman to fish around in the glove box, looking for the registration.

Then Porter straightened and closed the van door behind him. He was holding a yellow slip of paper in his hand. He studied it for a moment, then turned to Horace. "Is this some sort of prank?" he asked, irritated.

"What?" Horace said.

"This vehicle is registered to you."

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