“Three, ten-seventy-six. Three, not sure if this is completely ten-thirty-three, but you might be aware that the female subject indicated that there was a man trying to come in her window.”

I reached down and turned on my red and blue top lights. “Three is en route. Can she ID the suspect?”

“Contact was broken by the caller, Three. Auto callback rings through, no answer. Female subject was very excited, but described the intruder as a white male with… ” She paused, and I thought I had detected barely suppressed humor in her voice. “Ah, continuing, Three. Suspect described as white male with teeth.”

“Teeth, Comm?”

“Ten-four, Three. Teeth.”

“Ah, okay, ten-four. Still en route. Advise when the Freiberg car goes ten-twenty-three at the scene.” Teeth?

“Ten-four, Three. Will advise.”

Teeth? I distinctly remember thinking that I wasn'tgoing to hear the end of that one for a while. At least it wasn't a gun or a knife. I really hate knives.

Our usual shortage of deputies available for duty had been aggravated by an early appearance of the flu in the last two weeks, so from a total of nine, we were down to five or four effectives, depending on who called in sick next, and when the next officer came back. As senior officer, I still had to pull twelve-hour shifts, but my exalted status meant that I got first choice of which shift I would work. I'd chosen noon to midnight. It was a combination of the shift that was the most fun, and the one where you could get the most actual work done.

About two minutes later, I heard Byng, the Freiberg officer, go 10-23 at the scene.

“I was ten-four direct, Comm,” I said, letting Sally know that I had heard him and to keep her from having to tell me. That was because her transmissions from the base station were so much more powerful than ours, she could obliterate a transmission from the Freiberg officer, especially when he was on his walkie-talkie.