Just Routine

By Alekto

Disclaimer: Oddly enough, I don't own Supernatural – however much I'd like to.

Rating: T (language and violence)

Summary: A cop makes a routine traffic stop on a speeding black Chevy Impala and for everyone involved things go steeply downhill from there. Outsider POV.

A/N: Please bear in mind that I know virtually nothing about real US police procedures or the practice of medicine, and while I've driven through the Mid-West a couple of times, I've never actually been to South Dakota. As far as I know there is no Henderson or Henderson County in SD. Also I'm English which I hope might explain some of the spelling!

Part 1

It was when I was on my way home after finishing up a long shift when the big black car sped past me. Any idiot can tell you that passing a cop car at a speed way beyond the posted limit isn't the smartest thing to do, but it was a Friday night so I figured it was nothing more than some idiot bucking for a DUI. Then I just had to go and prove that I was just as much of an idiot as them by turning on lights and siren and going after them, no matter that I was off duty. Goddamned sense of duty, however much I figured I'd finally gotten rid of it, it snuck up and got me – every single goddamned time.

Not half an hour earlier I'd been leaning back in the squad car watching the slow trickle of rain dripping down the windshield, taking a sip of the long since tepid coffee I'd been nursing for the past hour. The shiny, new mug that I'd mail-ordered and paid ten bucks for the week before had been advertised by the manufacturers as keeping a beverage warm for hours. Turned out they'd lied.

Outside of the warmth of the car, the rain slicked road was quiet, the occasional vehicle going by driven by a local who was only too aware of my presence and who for the most part drove accordingly. When the I-90 had gone through fifty miles to the south, Henderson County had started to lose people to other towns along the Interstate. In a generation Henderson itself had gone from a population of more than fifteen thousand people to probably no more than half that.

Across the county more and more businesses were failing every year and too many folks who for whatever reason couldn't get out had taken to drowning their sorrows when they could. Anyone could tell you that Henderson's only growth industry was drink related offences, which was why every Friday and Saturday evening I ended up sitting in the car, waiting for the DUIs to roll by. As usual, apart from a couple of friendly warnings, the evening had been uneventful. "Lincoln Three Seven to control. Annie, I'm gonna call it a night. Log me out at, uh…" I looked down to check the time, "23:54, okay?"

"Sure Cole," she replied, her harshly nasal words barely audible over the background crackle, and not for the first time I wondered if the county was ever going to spring for new radios. "See you Monday."

See you Monday… Three words: the promise of a dull, quiet weekend after a dull, quiet week carrying with them the tiniest hint of longing in the voice of a woman who was still single and desperately didn't want to be - but that was one train of thought I wasn't lingering on. Without answering I tossed the radio handset back onto the passenger side seat, tipped out the dregs of coffee and figured that one of these days I'd have to get out of Henderson too. After all, it wasn't like I had anything holding me here. Not any more.

Job finished for the evening, I turned the ignition and after a couple of abortive splutters the engine caught and I pulled out onto the road, heading for the trailer that for the past couple of years had been masquerading as home.

And it was barely a mile down that very same road that the big black car blazed past me as if I was standing still and the hounds of Hell were on its tail. So I did what duty demanded and I took up the pursuit. Goddamn sense of duty. It got me every time.

Running the black car, an old Chevy, down didn't take long. One of the few things the county did right by the Sheriff's Office was to invest in a handful of decent cars, and when you factor in driving high speed at night, knowing the road can make one hell of a difference. So I took advantage of a bend I knew was coming up and managed to pull in front of the black car, slowing it to a halt in the weed encrusted parking lot of what had once been a truck stop. Fan tails of water splashed up as the Chevy's tyres cut through the rain that had pooled in hollows of the uneven surface before it finally stopped in front of the crumbling remains of a low wall. The place had been built post-War, a cluster of cinderblock buildings flanked by spindly shade trees; a nearby sagging billboard still held the fading advertisement for a car now twenty years out of date.

The big black car I'd pulled over was certainly a classic of its type - an old Chevy Impala carrying Kansas plates. Assuming someone hadn't just bought the car from an out-of-state seller, I could pretty much conclude that the driver wasn't local which got me to wondering what in hell he had been doing tearing down a road outside of Podunk, South Dakota. Then routine took over and I picked up the radio to call it in. "Lincoln Three Seven to control. I need a DMV check on a black Chevy Impala'65 or maybe '67, Kansas plates, KAZ 2Y5." I hit the receive button, waiting for Annie to reply in her usual less than dulcet tones but heard only static. "Lincoln Three Seven to control. Do you read?" More static. Great. Perfect.

I noted the make and plate in my notebook then got out of the car, automatically adjusting the holster on the belt around my waist. In all the years I'd been in Henderson I'd never had cause to draw that gun, but old habits died hard and given there looked to be two people in the Chevy while I had no back up and the radio was down, I figured better too cautious than not cautious enough.

Walking cautiously up to the car I noticed deep gouges in the otherwise immaculate if mud-spattered paintwork. The driver's side window that I thought had been rolled down I could now see had been broken, and recently if the shards of glass clinging around the frame were anything to go by. I glanced again at the gouges, checking for rust and not finding any, so likely recent too and scenarios each less likely than the last ran through my mind as to what might have caused them. One thing I was damned sure about: it didn't look like any collision damage I'd ever seen, and the only thing that sprang to mind was it looked like a car I'd seen once during a visit to Yellowstone that had been clawed by a grizzly. One problem: last time I checked there were no bears around Henderson and the nearest park with a bear population was way over in the next state.

Thoughts of bears were carefully sidelined as I walked up to the driver's side and got my first look at the driver. The twenty-something kid behind the wheel smiled up at me with that fake friendly smile that people seem to keep for stops by traffic cops. "What's the problem officer?"

I didn't bother smiling back. From the look in his eyes he'd been this route before and both of us knew the script. "Licence and registration please," I said. He handed them over to me like they'd been easily at hand and I guessed he'd probably gotten them out as I'd been walking up to him. Then it occurred to me that there was no obvious smell of alcohol in the car like I'd expected, but I knew that meant nothing: a lot of spirits don't smell on the breath anywhere near as bad as beer. I directed my flashlight down and checked the licence: Dean Johnson, DOB 6/26/79, address in Wichita.

The picture was accurate if unflattering: the expression caught by the photographer a too knowing smirk pretending to be a smile. "Step out of the car, please, Mr. Johnson," I asked.

"Is this really necessary, Officer?" The smile was back again but slightly different this time: an easy, cajoling good ol' boy smile that as good as said 'aw, shucks Officer, I was only a little bit over the limit but I'm real sorry about it so how about you let it go with a warning'.

It was a line I'd heard time and again and truth be told the smile looked sincere, and it was late, and I was tired. I was almost sold on it, about to let him get away with a friendly warning when I looked again at his eyes: they were flat and calculating and a whole world away from belonging to a 'good ol' boy'. There was a prickling on the back of my neck as years of hard learned cop instincts started screaming a warning like I hadn't heard since I'd worked in LA back during the riots, a warning that this Dean Johnson was trouble and there was no way I should let him just go on his way. And God help me, I listened to them.

I wish like Hell I hadn't.

I wish like Hell I'd just let them go with a warning.

TBC…