“Corporal Watkins,” Sergeant Houston snapped. “You know better than that.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Janice replied to the duty sergeant. He was mad—she knew he only called her “Corporal Watkins” if he was really steamed. “Things were just a little frantic there. The perp was bleeding like a stuck pig, and I was afraid he was going to bleed out, so it got a little busy. I didn’t realize she’d left until EMS got there.”

“Do you realize,” he said, the anger clear in his voice. “Do you realize,” his voice even louder, “how stupid the report is going to look? Even worse, how really stupid it’s going to look when the TV stations get hold of it? ‘Batgirl breaks up armed robbery’? What the hell is this, a comic book?”

“It wasn’t Batgirl,” Janice replied, knowing no excuse would suffice. “I used to read those comic books too, sir. Actually, now that I think about it, she puts me more in mind of Catwoman.” Ignoring the apoplectic glare that came from behind the desk, she flipped open her notebook. “When she had the perp down, holding a sword to his throat, according to the cashier she said, ‘I’m …’ well, some weird-sounding name I didn’t get, Poleeta or something, ‘I’m an Amazon, and I can send you to hell with a flick of my wrist.’”

“Comic book,” Sergeant Houston snorted. “It sounds like it’s right out of a comic book. Good God, when that idiot Metheny from Channel 5 gets hold of this, he’ll make it sound like Marvel Comics come to life. You remember when someone broke into Victoria’s Secret? All we heard out of him for a week was that whiny voice of his asking what we’re doing about ‘the panty raid at Victoria’s Secret.’ He really made us look like idiots.”

“Sir,” Janice protested, trying to put things into perspective. “While it looks crazy as hell, you do have to give her credit for crashing in and busting up a robbery like that. You stop and think about it, it’s pretty brave, to go up against a gun with a sword.”

“Damn foolish,” Sergeant Houston snorted again. “No, downright fucking stupid. Corporal Watkins, would you have done something like that?”

“The way I look at the security camera tape, the perp was diverted by the clerk,” Janice said, hoping to rationalize it some. “He’d already fired one shot. If I could have gotten in the door, I’d have had my Glock out. When he swung toward me he’d have been hurting even more.”

“And you’d have weeks off while it went to the Firearms Review Board,” Houston shook his head. “Damn it, a sword is deadly force! This Amazon character, hell, if the perp gets an attorney worth anything, she could be up for assault and battery with a deadly weapon.”

Janice frowned. That would be a hell of a thing to happen for doing a ballsy stunt like that. Weird or not, it was a gutsy move. “She might realize that,” she said as quietly as she could. “That might be why she got out of there so quick.”

“Great,” Houston snorted. “That’s going to look even better on Channel 5. We’re looking for a gal dressed in black, carrying a sword, so we can arrest her for breaking up a robbery. Then we’re really going to look like idiots. Did you even get a good look at her?”

“Pretty good, but only pretty good,” Janice said, referring to her notes. “Female, tall, about six feet, maybe a hundred and forty or fifty pounds, good build. Black long-sleeve top and long pants, all shiny black, like Spandex or something. A black leather corset—”

“A what?”

Janice nodded her head and carried on stoically. “A leather lace-up corset, covering her breasts and going down to her hips. All decked out with chrome studs. Spiked leather collar. High-laced boots with some lift. A hood over her head, covering her eyes like a mask. Well, yes, like Catwoman. That was black, too, but there was a good shock of curly red hair showing out the back. Lower face was all the skin we saw, but enough to see she was white, but with black lipstick.”

Houston shook his head. “An X-rated comic book then. This is the most unbelievable thing I’ve heard in twenty years on the force. I’m actually surprised she was carrying a sword rather than a whip.”

Janice wanted to crack a smile, but didn’t dare, not the way Sergeant Houston was raging. “I don’t know enough about swords to try and describe it. I mean, I know what a fencing foil looks like, and this was heavier than that. But it wasn’t a real heavy broadsword like you see in movies, either.”

“What in hell would she be doing with a fucking sword?” he snorted. His anger was fading now, into sheer disbelief. “But then, what the hell is she doing running around dressed like that, anyway?” He just closed his eyes and shook his head. “What about the car?”

“Don’t know, sir. I only got a glimpse of it. I was paying more attention to what was going on in the store. All I can say was that it was white. I thought it was some kind of an old-time hot rod. Officer Mattison said it looked like a thirties-style roadster, maybe a Packard or Duesenberg or something. He thinks it looked more like a classic, rather than a rod. The cashier got the best look at it, and all she says is that it was a real old convertible.” She hesitated for a moment, not wanting to say the next thing, but realized she’d have to. “She said it sort of put her in mind of a white Batmobile.”

Sergeant Houston just rolled his eyes. “Idiots. We’re going to look like idiots. Right out of a goddamn comic book. When the TV stations get hold of this …”

Janice cringed. This wasn’t going to be pretty. “I’m afraid they already have. There was a crew there from Channel 5 before we left the scene.”

“Oh, shit,” he said with a moan. “I hope you didn’t tell them anything.”

“Only that there had apparently been an attempted robbery and that the incident was still under investigation,” Janice said. “Just like I’m supposed to.” She didn’t want to mention the interview that the cashier had given to the news team. Houston could find out about that tomorrow, and that Metheny had been the one there doing the interviewing. Maybe, if she had good sense, she could be somewhere else. Brazil, maybe, if she was lucky. Yeah, this wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Good coverage on that holdup last night, Jason,” News Director Ben Ayres said in the Channel 5 First to Know News staff meeting the next morning. Like normal, the news staff was at their desks, with Ben standing on the assignment editor’s podium. “Near as I can tell, none of the other stations got it that well. But was that a weird one, or what?”

It had been a short night for Metheny. Even though he’d done the Sunday late news, he still had to work day-side today. That meant not much sleep after he and the cameraman had made it back to the station and did a rough cut of the footage shot at the Shop’n’Go. The tape included a distant shot of the EMS crew rolling the perp out on a gurney, and a brief “no-comment” from the senior officer on the scene—not surprising, she was something of a jerk, but then, all the cops in this town were jerks. The lack of sleep had been worth it—the footage and his report had been the lead story on the morning news, and it was in the same slot for the noon news, assuming the producer didn’t get weird ideas.

“That’s for sure,” the reporter said. “We don’t have something like that happen every day.”

“Was that Richardson woman seeing things, or what?” Ayers frowned. “She seemed pretty hysterical on the full footage. Glad you cut it down to the part where she was halfway together.”

Metheny nodded. The woman’s statement had been quite disjointed, so he’d cut a lot out of it, putting her story in better order. He did keep the part about “She was real, Mr. Metheny. She was real!” but that was more because Gritzmaker had them both on camera at the time, and she’d mentioned his name. That would be hard to cut out. With luck, as odd as this story was, it might get his name on national airtime.

“I can’t quite believe it myself,” he told the news director. “I mean, what would some chick be doing, walking around dressed like Catwoman, carrying a sword, and calling herself an Amazon? It’s crazy! But I talked to the ambulance crewman this morning, and the perp’s hand was cut to the bone, and the bone was broken, like he’d been hit with an axe. You don’t do that with a switchblade.”

“Yeah,” Dan Bishop, the morning and noon anchor said. “I’ll bet her boyfriend doesn’t push her around much. If she has a boyfriend, that is. I know I wouldn’t want to tangle with a girl who could do that.”

“I don’t know,” Sally Parker, the junior reporter, said from way down the row of desks in the large, crowded room, sporting a big grin on her face. “I seem to recall that Amazons didn’t have boyfriends. They just kept men around as slaves.”

Metheny shot an evil glance down the table at the young woman. That was just the kind of cheeky, stupid, feminist thing he’d have expected out of her mouth. What business of it was hers to even be in this discussion?

The anchor slapped his desk and broke down into laughter. “Right,” he almost shouted. “Shut up, slave, or zap! Off with your head.” There was another round of laughter from around the big, desk-crowded room.

“Getting back to business,” Ben continued once the laughter had died down, “Jason, I do have to compliment you for jumping on this one real quick. This is the sort of thing that doesn’t happen every day.”

“It struck me as one of those human interest things we ought to look into a little more seriously,” the handsome, dark-haired reporter said. “I thought that, because the story is so weird, we might get several days of coverage out of it.”

“Maybe,” Ben nodded. “But it needs lots more fleshing out than we’ve got. You grabbed the ball, Jason. Now you run with it. Do you know if the police have any leads on who this Amazon person is?”

“All I get is the usual runaround, the incident-under-investigation type of thing,” he frowned. “That’s about all I ever get out of the night-side crews. They never say much of anything. I should be able to get more out of the day side.”

“We need more than what you have now,” Ben frowned. “You opened up some lead on the other stations with your report last night. Now, we’ve got to stay on top of it. I can see several angles to look at. Maybe this is a good one for some team coverage.” He turned to Liz, the assignment director.” Who’s scheduled light today?” he asked the heavy-set blonde woman.

“Everybody’s real busy,” Liz frowned. “I was going to let Sally have a few hours off because she’s got a remote at the Fulton County Fair this evening, then the Sylvania School Board meeting tonight.”

“What’s the deal with the school board?” Ayres asked.

“They want a two-mill increase for technology purchases,” Sally reported.

“That’s crap,” Jeff Koser, the five o’clock producer said. “They always want millages for property tax increases. They usually get turned down, too. Nobody wants to hear about that stuff. Ben, this Amazon thing is real news. It’s going to get a lot of talk around the water coolers.”

“It’s not really news, when you get right down to it,” the news director said. “After all, we’re talking about a fifty-dollar holdup that got broke up in a weird way. That millage probably adds up to several million bucks of tax revenue. But what are people going to be watching, what are they going to talk about?”

“My point,” Koser snorted.

That wasn’t news around the table. Channel 5 was the fourth-rated station in a five-station market, barely out-pulling the local PBS affiliate, and everyone knew it. Ratings were always the hassle. Channel 5 had the smallest and weakest news team in the market, so its people were always spread thin—and while there were other factors involved that determined how the evening ratings would go, most of them the staff couldn’t do much about.

One of the things they could do was to find items that people wanted to see. The holdup at the Shop’n’Go had all the characteristics. Yeah, it may have been a penny-ante holdup, but the aftermath—with a little work, a mountain could be made from that molehill.

“But Ben,” the young woman reporter frowned. “The school millage is important to a lot of people. I know we don’t have much for overtime, but I was going to take off this afternoon so I wouldn’t go over.”

“Sally, better do the fair, since they’ve got ads with us, but skip the school board meeting,” Ayres ordered. “Give a call over in the morning and find out what happened, and we’ll do a two-liner. I want you to work with Jason on this Amazon thing and see if we can flesh it out a little. Maybe we can get a jump on the competition. Work with Jason on this.”

The taller reporter glanced down the table. That’ll put the mouthy little brat in her place, he thought. This was news. What’s more, it was his story. Do it right, and he’d get the airtime, and she’d get squat. “Sally, I’ll see what I can do about getting a police report,” he suggested, just a touch of patronization in his voice. “Maybe if we’re lucky, there’ll be security camera tape I can get my hands on.” He turned to the news director. “I’ve got to spend some time on Investigative Report this morning, or it won’t be ready for air.”

“Sally,” Ben said, looking down the table, “Why don’t you slide over to the Health Department and pick up the weekly report for Jason? Give it a once-over, see what stock shots we’ve got on file, and tell Liz where we’ve got to send a camera.”

“Well, Charlie, what do you think?” Janice asked.

Charlie Parker leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee. The coffee in the police department was just about as bad as coffee could be from any vending machine, he thought. They had a machine just about as bad at the Daily. Fortunately, from being both a cop and a reporter as long as he’d been, he was used to the bitterness and bad taste of cheap coffee. In fact, he preferred it that way. That Starbucks jazz—that stuff tasted too funny to drink.

“Yeah,” he said finally, glancing at the frozen image of the black-clad woman holding a sword point at the throat of the perp as Janice was coming into the scene. The image wasn’t real clear—a sort of fuzzy black and white. Since the security camera had taken it at a low frame rate, the action was jumpy. “That’s a weird one, all right, Jan.”

“You think it was weird on tape,” Janice snorted, coffee cup in her hand, too. It being Monday, the shifts had changed around, so she’d only had a few hours off after the cleanup and work at the scene of the holdup. “You should have been there.”

“Weirdest thing I ever saw, that’s for sure,” Rick commented, while holding his own cup of the so-called coffee.

Charlie shook his head. “When you’ve been around police work as much as I have, you’ll be lucky if it’s the weirdest thing you’ll ever see.”

“No ideas, huh?” Janice asked, trying to drag the discussion back on course.

“Uh, Corporal …” a new voice came from the counter. “Can I have a minute of your time?”

All three of them looked up, to see Jason Metheny from Channel 5, with a cameraman behind him, just standing there, holding the camera at his side. Charlie was the first to speak. “Well, look what the cat drug out of Worst to Know News,” he said, without even a hint of a smile to indicate it was a joke, which it wasn’t.

“What are you doing behind that counter, Parker?” the TV newsman replied, anger clear in his voice. “I was under the impression that reporters weren’t allowed behind the counter.”

“Mr. Metheny,” Janice said. “Mr. Parker may be a reporter, but he’s also a certified police officer. I wanted the benefit of his experience on something.”

“I always thought there was something strange about the way you were so buddy-buddy around here.” Metheny said, now sounding surly compared to his first tentative question. “Doesn’t that give you any journalistic ethics problems?”

“As if you’d know anything about journalistic ethics, even if you slipped and fell in some,” Parker snapped back. “For your information, while I’m an active police officer, I’m not on this force.”

“It still looks damn suspicious,” Metheny snorted. “Anyway, Corporal, Lieutenant Turner said I could have a copy of the security camera tape from the holdup at Dorr and Reynolds last night. I got the preliminary report from him.”

“You bring a VHS cassette?” Janice bristled. She knew that the TV stations used 8-mm videotape, but the security camera used the larger format. The department didn’t have money to give away VHS cassettes.

Without a word, the cameraman reached into his bulging equipment bag and produced one, handing it to her. She handed it over to Rick, who stuck it in the second slot of the VHS machine behind the counter. It was only the work of a few seconds to make the copy, and there wasn’t much said while it was being transferred. “There you go,” Janice said finally, handing the cassette back. “Anything else?”

“You were there last night,” the TV reporter said. “Do you have anything else to add?”

“If you have the report from upstairs, then you have everything authorized for release to you at this time,” Janice replied in a flat voice, almost like it was a message on a phone answering machine.

“Yeah, right, while you tell your reporter buddy all about it,” Metheny sneered. “That’s about what I expect out of this place.”

“Hey, Metheny,” Charlie said, putting an edge on his own voice, “don’t trip over any loose panties on your way out.”

“You’ll get yours someday, Parker,” Metheny said as he headed for the door, the cameraman tagging along behind.

As she watched the TV reporter go, Janice mumbled under her breath, loud enough that the others could hear. “That asshole. If he’d at least acted like he was trying to be nice to the scum of the earth, there was a lot I could have told him off the record.”

Charlie picked up his coffee cup again and said, a lot more conversationally than when talking to Metheny, “You know, one of the nice things about not being a cop on this department now is that I don’t have to be nice to that son of a bitch.”

“That does have its points,” Janice said and grinned evilly.

“Charlie, I always heard you had been a cop,” Rick said. “I didn’t know you were active.”

“Not very. There’s a couple small towns where I’ll go and work a shift once in a while, just as a fill in. Just a few bucks and keeping the certification current. Who knows, I might get tired of being a reporter and want to go full-time again someday.”

“You used to be on this department, right?”

“Years ago. They had a budget cut and there were some layoffs, so I got put out on the street. I was a journalism minor, and the Daily was looking for someone to cover police at the time. They thought it was a good fit. Turned out I liked it, too, so I stayed there when the callback came.”

“You didn’t want to go back on the force?” Rick frowned.

“It’s more money,” Charlie shrugged, talking mostly to the younger officer. He and Janice had covered it often enough before. They were good friends, and both of them were divorced, though for different reasons. “Besides, Rick, why is a police officer like a tail gunner on a garbage truck?”

“I’ll bite,” the younger officer said with resignation.

“Because most of what both of them do is pick up trash off the streets,” Charlie laughed. “A reporter at least gets to look at some of the interesting trash and not have to mess around with someone going five over in a school zone, or a routine domestic violence call.”

“Interesting, like this holdup?” Janice asked.

“It qualifies,” Charlie replied, a grin of his own on his face. “I did have one idea, but maybe you don’t want to follow up on it.”

“I’m open to ideas. I was told to bust my ass to try to ID this Poleeta, or whoever, and there ain’t jack to go on.”

Charlie frowned. Well, for what it was worth, there was no way he wasn’t going to tell Janice what he had on his mind. Rick might not know it, but she was his sort-of girlfriend, once in a while. If she wanted to tell her partner, that was fine, but it wasn’t his place to do so. “It’s hard to tell from the tape,” he said. “It jerks around a lot, but I get the impression that this isn’t the first time this Amazon or whatever had a sword in her hand. I do know it’s not as easy as it looks. She knows what she’s doing.”

Janice sat back, thinking about it. “Yeah, Charlie,” she said finally. “A sword winning out over a gun, you might have something there. But where does it lead?”

“Until Panty Raid from Channel 5 walked in, I was going to suggest you talk to my little sister, see what she thinks.”

“Your sister?” Janice frowned. “Oh yeah, she works at Channel 5, doesn’t she? What help could she be?”

“Maybe quite a bit. She started competition fencing while I was still living at home. Her last year at Ohio State, she was Great Lakes Champion in whatever class it was, and went to the NCAA nationals. Point is, from what I can tell, fencing isn’t a big deal in this town, but she probably knows most everyone in this area who can handle a sword like that.”

“Hooo, boy,” Janice exclaimed. “You’re right on both counts. She probably would have an idea of who this Amazon character is, but if she works with that idiot Metheny … you think she’d talk to us without telling him?”

“She might,” Charlie said, “but you also could check with the fencing coach at the club over at the University of Toledo. He probably knows everybody in town who can handle a sword, too, and maybe even better than Sally, because she just moved back after college and a job working elsewhere for a while.”

“Charlie, I hate to ask this,” Rick said. “But is there any chance that this Amazon could be your sister?”

Charlie shook his head. “I don’t think so. Cue the tape again and let me have another look at it. Run it down to where she turns to leave, after Janice came in.”

In a few seconds, Rick had the tape in place. Charlie sat down at the still screen, and looked at it for a moment. “Don’t think so,” he said. “Check out the hair.”

“Yeah, she has a head of it,” Rick noted. “Serious redhead we noticed at the store, but the color doesn’t show on the tape.”

“My sister is a brunette, keeps her hair cut fairly short.” Charlie pointed at the image on the screen with a pen. “I don’t think it’d even show out the back of a hood like that. Besides, there’s two other things against it being her.”

“What’s that?” Janice asked.

“Come on Janice, you’ve met Sally,” Charlie chided, and pointed a little lower on the screen. “This gal has some serious boobs. Sally’s darned flat chested by comparison.”

“I guess. I have to say, unlike some police officers I know, I’m not in the habit of estimating women’s chest sizes.”

“Now that you mention it,” Rick said, “our Amazon was fairly decently equipped in that department. But I always thought Amazons cut one off so it wouldn’t get in the way of their bowstrings.”

“Just a myth, Rick,” Charlie laughed. “Just a myth. Just like the Amazons themselves.”

“That’s sort of a relief, you know?” Rick said.

“Now that I think about it,” Janice said, resolutely trying to get back to business. “Her voice didn’t sound right to be your sister either. She didn’t say a lot, but it was all in a lower voice, huskier, sort of.” She let out a sigh. “Probably would be worthwhile to talk to her, but you’re right, not if we don’t have to, what with her working with that Metheny idiot. We ought to talk with that fencing coach over at the university though.”

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